How do the cells of a growing plant know in which directions to Lab Report

How do the cells of a growing plant know in which directions to elongate - Lab Report Example For elongation to occur, the plant cells must loosen their cell walls for a short while (Wayne 2010). Auxin hormone is responsible for elongating the cells in the shoots. It triggers the pumping of hydrogen ions across the cell membrane and altering the way gene expression occurs within the cell in a way that influences plant growth. The experiment focuses on the influence of mechanical force in influencing the direction of the plant cell elongation. Plant cells transmit mechanical force among each other. The experiment was conducted after suspecting that mechanical force guides the alignment cortical microtubules (Wayne 2010). The experimented started by examining the non-elongated plant cells. The cells that lacked walls (protoplasts) were isolated from the tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum. The isolation was done through exposure of the plant cells to enzymes with the capability of destroying the cell wall. The result is a spherical plant cell. When the protoplasts were allowed to develop in the culture medium, they reformed their cell walls (Wymer & Cosgrove 1996). To study the effects of directional forces on plant cell elongations, the tobacco protoplasts were subjected to a unidirectional force that was produced by a centrifuge. The exposure of the force was made with previous knowledge that when the centrifugation is made in low speed, it does not distort the shape or integrity of the protoplast. The protoplasts were then immobilized ready for centrifugation. They were embedded on an agar medium that was supported by the mold. The embedded cells were spun for 15 minutes at 450 rpm in a centrifuge. After centrifugation, the already embedded cells were then cultured for 72 hours to allow the cell elongation to take place (wymer & Cosgrove 1996). After centrifugation was over, a microtubule antibody that was fluorescently tagged was added to the protoplasts. The cells were then